Everything We Know About The ‘Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping' Movie So Far
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways
Suzanne Collins gave her readers a huge gift in returning to the world of The Hunger Games series, the first three books of which she wrote in 2008, 2009 and 2010, for the prequel story of one Haymitch Abernathy.
Haymitch, portrayed by Woody Harrelson in the quartet of films based on Collins' original book trilogy, was Katniss Everdeen's (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark's (Josh Hutcherson) mentor for their two Hunger Games — the 74th and 75th.
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For everything we know about the film adaptation of Hunger Game: Sunrise on the Reaping, read on:
When does the The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping film come out?
The film will arrive in theaters November 20, 2026.
Has the Sunrise on the Reaping film started production yet?
The film is still in early rounds of casting.
Who will play Haymitch Abernathy in The Sunrise on the Reaping movie?
Joseph Zada has been cast in the main role of Haymitch for the film. Zada will soon appear in another highly anticipated book adaptation, the television series We Were Liars coming to Prime Video this June. In that show, he plays Johnny Sinclair.
Deadline exclusively reported Zada's casting alongside the actress who will play Haymitch's love interest, Lenore Dove Baird.
Who else is in the cast of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping film?
Whitney Peak will portray Lenore Dove Baird, Haymitch's girl and a descendant of the Covey, the nomadic group of performers whom Collins expanded upon in her first prequel story, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Joseph Zada and Whitney Peak
Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), was a member of the Covey.
Deadline also exclusively broke the news of McKenna Grace's casting as Maysilee Donner, another District 12 tribute, in the upcoming film.
Plutarch Heavensbee (portrayed by the late Philip Seymour-Hoffman in Catching Fire and Mockingjay Parts 1 and 2) will be played by Jesse Plemons, Deadline first reported.
Wyatt Callow and Louella McCoy are the two other District 12 tributes that fought in the 50th Hunger Games alongside Haymitch and Maysilee.
More familiar characters who will prominently feature in this story are of course President Snow (portrayed by the late Donald Sutherland in the first four Hunger Games films and later Tom Blythe in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks in the original four Hunger Games films), Beetee (Jeffrey Wright in Catching Fire and both parts of Mockingjay) and Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci's commentator and celebrity personality from the first quartet).
What is The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping about?
The prequel story focuses on Haymitch's Hunger Games. Obviously since he was around to mentor Katniss and Peeta in their first and (unfortunately) second set of games, he was a victor of his own games, but that did not make them any more gruesome, for his games were the 50th set.
Every 25 years, the capitol of Panem, the dystopian nation in which these stories take place, reinforces what is called the Quarter Quell, meaning a special wrinkle or rule is added to the Hunger Games before The Reaping ceremony, in which tribute names are drawn.
RELATED: New 'Hunger Games' Novel From Suzanne Collins Coming In 2025
The wrinkle of Haymitch's games was that each district was required to send double the amount of tributes that year, so four competitors from each district doubled the amount of players in the games — making it a whopping 48 versus the normal 24.
For those new to the universe entirely, each District of Panem — there are 12 — is forced to send two tributes each into the Hunger Games, a barbaric tradition that pits these pairs of usually children together in an arena to fight until the death until only one remains. Collins has spoken of the inspiration as gladiator fights and Greek mythology. The two tributes, a boy and a girl, are selected in a Reaping process which involves slips of paper with names on them in a bowl that a Capitol representative pulls from.
In District 12, specifically, where Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch AND Lucy Gray Baird are from, candidates can opt for extra slips of paper with their names on them to get more food or supplies, because the coal-mining district is a poor one.
RELATED: Josh Hutcherson 'Would Happily' Reprise 'Hunger Games' Role, Tells Suzanne Collins To 'Write A Book'
Who else is behind the Sunrise on the Reaping film?
Francis Lawrence, who directed The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes as well as Catching Fire and both Mockingjay films, will return to helm this prequel story, penned by Billy Ray, who wrote the script for the first original film's adaptation.
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It feels abrupt, but it's that jolt of the contrast that also makes that moment feel particularly impactful to watch. "Our sense of filmmaker is so much based on surprise, Craig said. "As a cinephile, my main decade to go to are outlandish '90s movies, because they just take you to a different space, and as long as you have a reality to the characters that are already at hand, you can kind of take them wherever." "Personally, the situation of adoption was a constant jolt [from] one emotion to another that we felt like that was the right way to tell a story like this, which was literally, fall in love with a couple and then send them into a complete nightmare. And I think you can only get that way if you do it abruptly, and kind of manically." While Rannells and Kroll have that funny and sweet chemistry the story needs, these were roles that weren't written for them. But it works because Crano and Craig know how to write in each other's voices so well, that's where a lot of the dialogue is pulled from. Additionally, the filmmakers had the "creative trust" in each other to pitch any idea, as random as it may have seemed, to see if it could work for the film. "When you're with somebody you've lived with for 15 years, there is very little that I can do that would embarrass me in front of David," Crano said. "So that level of creative freedom is very generative." "We were able to screw up in front of each other a lot without it affecting the rest of our day," Craig added. Of course, with the language barrier between the filmmakers and the Italian cast, it was a real collaboration to help make the script feel authentic for those characters. "All of the Italian actors and crew were very helpful in terms of being like, 'Well I feel like my character is is from the south and wouldn't say it in this way.' And helped us build the language," Crano said. "And it was just a very trusting process, because neither of us are fluent enough to have that kind of dialectical specificity that you would in English." "It was super cool to just be watching an actor perform a scene that you've written in English that has been translated a couple of times, but you still completely understand it, just by the generosity of their performance." For Craig, he has an extensive resume of acting roles, including projects like Boy Erased and episodes of Dropout. Among the esteemed alumni of the Upright Citizens Brigade, he had a writing "itch" for a long time, and was "in awe" of Crano's work as a director. "Truthfully, in a weird way, it felt like such a far off, distang job, because everything felt really difficult, and I think with this project it just made me understand that it was just something I truly love and truly wanted to do," Craig said. "I love the idea of creative control and being in a really collaborative situation. Acting allows you to do that momentarily, but I think like every other job that you can do on a film is much longer lasting, and I think that's something I was truly seeking." For Crano, he also grew up as a theatre kid, moving on to writing plays in college. "The first time I got laughs for jokes I was like, 'Oh, this is it. Let's figure out how to do this,'" he said. "I was playwriting in London, my mom got sick in the States, so I came back, and I started writing a movie, because I was living in [Los Angeles] and I thought, well there are no playwrights in L.A., I better write a movie.'" That's when Crano found a mentor in Peter Friedlander, who's currently the head of scripted series, U.S. and Canada, at Netflix. "I had written this feature and ... we met with a bunch of directors, great directors, directors I truly admire, and they would be like, 'It should be like this.' And I'd be like, 'Yeah, that's fine, but maybe it's more like this.' And after about five of those Peter was like, 'You're going to direct it. We'll make some shorts. We'll see if you can do it.' He just sort of saw it," Crano recalled. "It's nice to be seen in any capacity for your ability, but [I started to realize] this is not so different from writing, it's just sort of writing and physical space and storytelling, and I love to do it. ... It is a very difficult job, because it requires so much money to test the theory, to even see if you can." But being able to work together on I Don't Understand You, the couple were able to learn things about and from each other through the filmmaking process. "David is lovely to everyone," Crano said. "He is much nicer than I am at a sort of base level, and makes everyone feel that they can perform at the best of their ability. And that's a really good lesson." "Brian literally doesn't take anything personally," Craig added. "Almost to a fault." "And it's very helpful in an environment where you're getting a lot of no's, to have a partner who's literally like, 'Oh, it's just no for now. Great, let's move on. Let's find somebody who's going to say yes, maybe we'll come back to that no later.' I'm the pessimist who's sitting in the corner going, 'Somebody just rejected me, I don't know what to do.' ... It just makes you move, and that's that's very helpful for me."
